The Policeman’s View of that Snowball

Dave, the author of England’s The Policeman’s Blog writes about the effort to rewrite England’s self defense laws in Hot Burglaries. Excerpt:

The wife and children of Mr Monckton will doubtless be relieved to know that the burglary rate in England is declining significantly. They will also be pleased with official reassurances that the risk of being confronted in one’s own home by a burglar is astonishingly rare. Not as astonishingly rare as it is in the US, where the right to defend one’s family has not been taken away from the individual and given to the state.

Whenever I go to a burglary, I reach for the modern English policeman’s weapon of choice: the photocopier (double sided, black and white, 40 copies per minute). I have to print out leaflets to put into letterboxes asking if people saw anything at about the time of the burglary. I usually do about five houses either side of the attacked property and ten on the opposite side of the street and any other properties that may be significant (shops, garages etc). I also take a detailed statement about what has been taken, the layout of the house and any damage caused and I give the crime number to the injured party. SOCO will arrive (if they can finish before 9.00 pm) and often recover footprints and glove marks. Finally, I leave a leaflet offering the services of Victim Support and advise the homeowners to take better security precautions in the future. The victim’s faith in the police restored, I leave to return to the police station to write a detailed report of my actions.

The English middle classes are at their best when they are burgled: the stiff upper lip, the offer of tea, the uncomfortable draught caused by the smashed window in the kitchen (“don’t worry officer, we’ve not touched anything”). They display a resignation which I used to find touching, but now makes me rather frustrated.

RTWT. For that matter, read the whole blog.

Edited to add, An Englishman’s Castle points to the latest news stories on the “Bash-a-Burglar” law, and credits bloggers at least somewhat.